“Give me your hand, damn it!” Hawkeye yelled, the muscles in his neck straining as he held the edge of the heavy crate. The wood groaned, splinters biting into his palms.
“I can’t! I’m fine, Captain Pierce, really, I’ll just slide out!” Radar squeaked, his round face pale beneath a fresh layer of Korean mud. He squirmed like a trapped badger, prioritizing the concealment of his left arm over his own physical safety.
B.J. Hunnicutt slid through the muck, grabbing the other side of the crate. “On three, Hawk. One, two, three!”
Together, the two surgeons heaved the heavy box off the corporal, tossing it to the side with a wet thud. Hawkeye immediately dropped to his knees, reaching for Radar’s left side. “Let me see the arm, Radar. You could have a fracture, a crush injury—”
“No!” Radar scrambled backward like a crab, his right hand immediately grabbing the ever-present clipboard from the mud and slamming it against his left side, burying his left hand deep in the folds of his jacket. “It’s just a bruise! I gotta go… Colonel Potter needs the requisition forms for the new tongue depressors!”
Hawkeye and B.J. exchanged a look. It wasn’t just panic; it was sheer, unadulterated shame radiating from the young man from Ottumwa, Iowa.
“Radar,” B.J. said softly, his voice adopting that gentle, paternal tone he usually reserved for his daughter, Erin. “We’re doctors. If you’re hurt, we need to fix it before you end up needing an amputation. And frankly, my saw is dull today.”
“I said I’m fine!” Radar snapped, a rare flash of anger breaking through his usual deferential demeanor. He scrambled to his feet, wincing visibly as weight shifted onto his left shoulder, and bolted toward the Company Clerk’s office, clutching the clipboard so tightly his knuckles were white.
“Well,” Hawkeye muttered, wiping a streak of mud from his forehead. “That was… weird. Even by our incredibly low standards of normalcy.”
“You think he’s hurt?” B.J. asked, watching the small figure disappear into the tent.
“He’s bleeding,” Hawkeye noted grimly, looking at a small smear of crimson on the canvas where Radar had just been. “And whatever he’s hiding under that clipboard, it’s hurting him a lot more than a falling box of bandages.”
Before they could investigate further, the dreaded, mechanical thwack-thwack-thwack of incoming choppers echoed over the hills. The PA system crackled to life.
“Attention all personnel. Incoming wounded. We have a severe case of the Korean War arriving on pads one and two. All medical personnel report to triage immediately. And someone tell the cook to stop boiling the shoes; we’re going to need them.” It was Radar’s voice, steady and professional, as if he hadn’t just been crushed by a crate. Hawkeye shook his head. The mystery of Walter O’Reilly would have to wait. The meatgrinder was open for business.
For the next fourteen hours, the O.R. was a symphony of organized chaos. Blood, sweat, and the pungent smell of ether filled the humid air. Hawkeye moved like a machine, tying off bleeders, removing shrapnel that looked like rusted razor blades, and trading barbed insults with Major Frank Burns to keep his own sanity intact.
“If you took a little more care with your sutures, Pierce, they wouldn’t look like a blind seamstress sewed them,” Frank whined, his ferret-like eyes glaring over his surgical mask.
“Frank, if you had an ounce of medical talent, you’d be a danger to yourself and others,” Hawkeye fired back, not looking up from a bowel resection. “Clamp.”
Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan slapped the instrument into his hand. “Major Burns is an excellent surgeon, Captain! He follows protocol!”
“Margaret, Frank’s idea of protocol is asking the bullet for its name, rank, and serial number before removing it,” B.J. chimed in from the next table.
Through the blur of exhaustion, Hawkeye glanced over at the door. Radar was there, as always, functioning as the central nervous system of the room. He was calling out blood types, wiping brows, and running messages. But Hawkeye noticed the subtle differences. Radar was only using his right hand. The clipboard was jammed awkwardly under his left armpit. His face was gray, covered in a sheen of cold sweat, and his left sleeve was subtly stained with a growing patch of dark, rusted brown.
He’s bleeding out, Hawkeye realized.
“B.J., close for me,” Hawkeye said, stepping back from the table and peeling off his bloody gloves.
“Where are you going?” Frank demanded. “You can’t leave the O.R.! It’s against regulations!”
“Frank, write me up. Send it to the Supreme Commander. Tell him I’m going to the bathroom,” Hawkeye snapped, pushing past the swinging doors.
He found Radar in the scrub room, leaning heavily against the sink. The clipboard had fallen to the floor. Radar was desperately trying to unbutton his jacket with one hand, his teeth clenched in agony.
“Alright, kid, playtime is over,” Hawkeye said, stepping into the room and locking the door behind him.
Radar spun around, eyes wide. “Captain! I was just—”
“You’re bleeding, you’re in shock, and if you don’t let me look at that arm right now, I’m going to pull rank, which is something I haven’t done since I ordered a private to steal Frank’s mattress,” Hawkeye said, his voice stripping away the jokes, leaving only the concerned physician.
He didn’t wait for permission. Hawkeye stepped forward, grabbed Radar’s jacket, and gently but firmly pulled the left sleeve down. Radar squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head away, tears leaking onto his cheeks.
Hawkeye peeled back the blood-soaked undershirt. The forearm was badly bruised, a nasty laceration bleeding sluggishly near the wrist. But that wasn’t what caught Hawkeye’s eye. That wasn’t what Radar had spent years hiding.
Hawkeye’s gaze moved down to Radar’s left hand.
It was malformed. The fingers were short, stubby, and slightly fused together—a congenital condition known as brachydactyly. It wasn’t a war wound. It was a birth defect. The hand he always hid behind a clipboard, shoved into pockets, or kept out of frame. The secret shame of a boy from Iowa who just wanted to be normal.
The silence in the scrub room was heavy, broken only by the distant artillery and Radar’s ragged breathing.
Hawkeye carefully reached out and took the small, deformed hand in his own. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t stare. He simply examined the fresh cut near the wrist.
“Well,” Hawkeye said softly, his thumb gently brushing over the knuckles. “I’ll be damned. You really are human after all.”
Before Radar could process the lack of judgment, a sharp, nasal voice pierced the door.
“What’s going on in there?! Pierce, open this door! I demand to know what you are doing with enlisted personnel during a crisis!”
The doorknob rattled furiously. Frank Burns.
Hawkeye looked at Radar, whose face had just gone from pale to the color of chalk. If Frank saw this, it wouldn’t just be a secret anymore. It would be a weapon.
“Pierce, I am going to count to three!” Frank shrieked from the hallway. “One… two…”
[ Next Chapter ⏩ ]
